Of Interest

Morty answered a question about legacy admissions with all sorts of juicy details. He mentioned the distinction between direct legacies (one or two parents from Williams) and skip legacies (no parents but at least one grandparent). He noted that the former were more of a focus than the latter. He reported that 12%-15% of a typical Williams class was direct legacy. I think he said that the class of 2012 was 15%, but that went up to 17%-18% once you included Eph grandchildren. Morty mentioned that some people (other LAC presidents?) feel that you want to be wary of having “double digit” legacies, that you want to allow for new blood and not be too inbred. Morty thought this was nuts. He saw no reason to penalize an applicant just because her parents went to Williams. How does that make sense? If anything, he felt that such applicants were particularly desirable. They understood Williams, knew its strengths and weaknesses, and were probably making a very informed decision in coming here.

Morty noted that a decade or so ago [or perhaps when he arrived?], the average legacy was a 3.3 on the 1-9 scale of academic ranks while the average non-legacy was 2.3. Morty did not seem to be a huge fan of this gap, or of giving legacies such a preference. He then noted that the latest statistics show that legacy and non-legacy are now equivalent (both at 2.3). Morty confirmed, consistent with all the analysis I have done, that being a legacy is not a meaningful advantage in getting into Williams. Morty noted that the way that some people measure this — by comparing the general admissions rate (16%) with the legacy admission rate (40%?) — was misleading because legacy applicants are often told ahead of time that they have no chance. So, they don’t apply and/or withdraw their applications, thus artificially increasing the legacy acceptance rate. Non-legacies with no chance are not given this inside scoop. They just apply and get rejected.

Of course, being a legacy is still an advantage. Morty pointed out that the acceptance rate for AR 1’s was only about 30%. [I bet this was for all AR 1’s, not just US citizens, which almost all legacies are.] Legacies with AR 1s are “always” accepted. [I bet that AR 1 legacies are some of the best and happiest members of the Willams community, especially the subset that applies early decision. They could have gone elsewhere but chose Williams because they were more than ready to fall in love with it. In other words, even if you did not want to give legacies an advantage qua legacies, you should still admit the AR 1 legacies over other AR 1s because these sons and daughters of Ephs are much more likely to be happy at Williams and contribute to the happiness of others.]

27 Responses to “Legacy Admissions”

I fully agree with giving legacies a leg up in admissions. But I support affirmative action. And let there be no mistake: This is as clear a form of affirmative action as there is. So it’s fine to support this, but I don’t want to hear bitching about other forms of far more important affirmative action intended to address very real historical circumstances.

The issue, obviously, is one of magnitude. Almost no one would object to affirmative action (or tips) if the “edge” provided were similar to that given to legacies. But, it’s not. It’s much bigger. African American students at Williams have SAT scores (math+verbal) that are around 150 points lower than Chinese American students at Williams. That may be a good thing. It may be a bad thing. But it is in a different ballpark from the advantages given to legacies.

According to all of the colleges filing briefs in the Gutter and Gratz Michigan cases, affirmative action is not intended to redress historic grievances. It is solely intended to to improve the educational product provided to all customers.

David, SAT scores are not the only measure of admission last time I checked. Do these statistics (that I’m assuming you can cite to) also include numbers on grades, extracurriculars, and other factors that go into admissions, or do you think SATs are the only measure? I just don’t think picking one aspect is all that useful.

The average difference between GPAs for Chinese Americans and African Americans at places like williams is similar to that for SAT scores. The basic reason is that almost any African American high school student with Williams-caliber grades/scores (say, AR 1-3) is admitted to H/Y/P/S and, unsurprisingly, most of these turn down Williams. Chinese American students are not so lucky, if that is the right word. I am not at a computer where linking is easy, but these empirical claims are about as controversial, for those who know the literature, as the claim that Williamstown is colder than Miami. I am unaware of any research on racial differences in extra-curriculars but since (outside of tips) extra-curriculars are much less important than grades/scores in elite admissions, it doesn’t matter much.

By the way, wouldn’t it be swell if Morty told us what the average academic rank is for URMs at Williams? He was happy to tell us the average value for legacies, and the College has made public the average values for athletes, at least historically. Alas, the College refuses to make that data public. It is too incendiary. (When the College shares grade/score data with student researchers like Jen Doleac or Lindsay Taylor, it not only removes student names (as it obviously should). It also refuses to provide student races.

The irrational obsession with racial diversity overwhelms admissions from the standpoint of our nation. We are continually being asked to support foreign nationals, especially those of religion and race, to replace our denizens with those of other nations least bearing our racial and religious make up.

We are being deceived.

Are the foreign nationals entering the United States familiar with the Americans of the United States under which Jefferson, Washington, Adams, and Hamilton spoke of. I believe they are anti American, in that they are proliferating the demographics of disintegration towards our country, under which no nation can survive.

Our legacies are being disenfranchised to accommodate the “disappearance factor” from our society. In point of fact, there is an undercurrent of resentment towards legacies.

Creating statistical charts to justify disenfranchisement is OK when the ultimate goal is the denigration of our gene pool which ultimately represents the basis of our nation and its culture.

1. It is relatively easy in a campus like williams to identify students by their grades, major, class year IF you include race as well. for an on-campus researcher. That’s probably why they don’t give that to student researchers.
2. and what’s your point? When we look at how the students do at and after college, african american students (as Bowen and Bok showed long ago) are outperforming the competition. In the end, isn’t that what matters?
3. The concept of “meritocracy” is fundamentally a joke because it denies the unequal starting points of different individuals based on their class, gender, and racial backgrounds. it needs to be scrapped.

“Draw ‘em out of a hat” would produce a better student body if Williams would continue to have the same high “in class” academic standards and would ruthlessly and promptly weed out non-performers, all meaning that the College would vigorously and effectively resist becoming a therapeutic institution – and it certainly would make Williams a more democratic and otherwise superior college.

David —
Pretty ballsy — typically ballsy, I might add — to impute ignorance of the functioning of race in higher education on my part. I am, after all, a historian who works on the issue of race. So maybe when I raise the historical issue I do so with more than a little bit of a background on the question. And maybe this vacuous emphasis on something as flawed as test scores is hardly the most important aspect of this question in all of its historical ramifications. So let me be the gazillionth prerson to ask David to be less of a condescending assclown. Is it asking that much? (Don’t answer — I fear it will confirm my suspisions.)
There is vast scholarship on the issue of admissions and outcomes, and frankly there are no universal conclusions. So let me be clear again, since apparently my comment was a bit too oblique for our more dogmatic SAT-obsessed types. I will even preface it in such a way as not to enable David to imply that I may not know what I’m talking about: As a professional historian who thinks that historical circumstances matter and who is making a historically-based argument, the legacy of our racial past still holds a huge and deleterious place in American life. It is for that reason that I support affirmative action for African Americans and others who have a demonstrable history of discrimination. I don’t give two shits about SAT scores. Is that clear enough? Or maybe I just don’t understand the fine points of Dave’s manifest brilliance, a brilliance which always seems to take the side of the argument against black folks. But I’m sure that’s just coincidence. Brilliance, after all, cannot be channelled in the way that we hoi palloi are capable of doing with our rudimentary thinking skills.
And Rory is right — the sloppy invocation of meritocracy is pretty much laughable. I support the idea of a meritocracy. But the only way to reach that ideal state is to make sure that places such as Williams are at the forefront of not diversity for diversity’s sake, but of smart diversity in which race, legacy status, and what have you are part of but not all of the equation.

In my experience on EB, I have seen way too much emphasis on, (and reverence for), SAT scores.

My very first immersion in a discussion on this site had to do with this subject. I was amazed at how numbers were batted around, at how the difference of a 100 points or so, deemed a student as somehow, inferior, or tipped…or ‘allowed in’ for other reasons.

Scoring high on those tests depends on a lot of factors..not the least of which is a combination of many blessings…and great good fortune. And, IMO, any discussion of them, should be with the awareness that they are ultimately, no true measure of real worth.

Speaking of which, Wake Forest, and Smith (I believe) are two schools that recently announced that SATs will be optional to an application!

Your oblique solliloquay on our past is more a reflection of your guilt than of your redeeming answers. It merely leads to much of the same which is the decline of our ability to resolve our stasis under the spell or stigma of guilt.

I would rather observe males exercising their crude but forthcoming resolve in administering competance over the continuous abstemious self-deprecating posturing of our existential guilt ridden population seeking redemption.

Witless you are and witless your shall be.

I prefer the rule of natural law than the propoganda of your witless forms of rationalizing acquiesence.

[Derek] Given your first comment in this thread, it was hard to know if you were informed about the topic of affirmative action and legacy admissions at places like Williams today. You claim to be informed. Great! Why then would you think that it is plausible to claim that those who accept legacy “advantages” which result in the average legacy having the same SAT scores as the average non-legacy at Williams are not able to criticize affirmative action for African American students, which result in a 150 SAT point differential. What if the result were 200 points or 400? Would the policy still be Okey-dokey?

Instead of bothering to reply to your race-baiting, let me just ask you if Williams affirmative action policies apply to, say, members of the nation’s elite, say the daughters of Senator Obama? Let’s say that they apply to Williams in a decade or so with SAT scores and grades that were lead to rejection if they were Chinese American. Would you admit them because of “the legacy of our racial past?”

[FM and Derek] If you have a problem with the use of SAT scores (or AP scores or scores on all the tests that go into a high school GPA) then your first complaint should not go to me or EphBlog. Your first complaint should go to Richard Nesbitt and all the other nice folks in the Williams admissions office. They (with Morty) make the rules. not I. And, even better, they have put much more emphasis on scores/grades over the last 10 years. Is that because they are nasty people? Probably not. More likely, they discovered/knew that applicants with 1200 SAT scores (and similar grades) tend to do poorly at Williams and tend to fail out at much higher percentages. Would Williams really be doing them a favor by admitting them?

[FM] Schools that make the SAT optional are not “brave.” Overwhelmingly, they are not doing this because they have some unique insight that Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Williams, and the rest of the elite schools lack. They know that, on average, smart people do well on the SAT and dumb people do not. These schools just want to accept various students with lousy SAT scores without lowering their reported SAT score averages. The best way to do that is to encourage these students not to report their scores. The only way to do that is to make the SAT optional.

David,
I am not going to get caught up in this thread (too busy right now),
but for this…

I understand that Admissions uses SATs as part of a measure of whether a student qualifies for acceptance. But, I also believe they recognize that a lot of very smart, very accomplished students do not test well.

Other schools recognize this as well. I know of two students whose SAT scores were what you would deem as low…or “dumb”. One of them is now at Yale, the other, at Harvard (and doing just fine, BTW) Another one is applying at Berklee (in Boston), and stands a very good chance of being accepted.

And while it is one thing for Admissions to bat scores around a table, (along with all the other things they consider), it is particularly difficult to stomach it here…especially when assumptions are made about who must have scored high or low… who must have been ‘tipped’ or not.

And, I do admire Wake Forest and Smith for dropping the SAT requirement. Because I don’t believe they did it so that they can now accept “dumb” students.

There are all kinds of “smart” in this world. We are finding out more and more about intelligence, and the different ways in which it shows itself. I bet your SATs were high. But those tests are tailored for you…and me, and our kids…

If Williams, and Harvard, and Yale (etc, etc), really want a diverse student population, (and I mean diverse, in the most expansive sense of the word) then the SATs will need to be reconsidered…or at least acknowledged, as only one kind of measure.

No real people in the real world ever discuss or ask or care about SAT scores – only certain of the insecure, who have happened to garner high scores for themselves. Does that mean that college admission office representatives, script writers for “West Wing” and biographers of Bill Belichick are not part of the real world? Yes, it does.

Rory, how exactly do minorities “outperform” non-minorities after graduation? Is it by their frequent admission to better grad schools, or by their more common hiring at the most coveted of firms and companies? Given that virtually all grad schools and employers practice affirmative action, how is this “outperformance” not primarily a function of affirmative action rather than, as you imply, some other factor?

Now that said, there is no doubt in my mind that the SAT is biased against certain populations of students. This population includes many international students, as well as certain subsets of African Americans, Latinos, Whites, Native Americans, and just about other demographic group in America. It is students who lack the cultural capital that comes from attending a good (american) high school and from having a parent attend higher education who perform the worst on these tests. However, I am very hesitant to say that a student who has darker skin and is of an African decent, but has parents who attended Harvard and herself went to Andover, is at any sort of disadvantage for the test. Similarly, a student who is 1/16th Native American who would be a third generation college student from Amherst, MA, probably is going to score as well on the test as anybody. It seems to me that our focus on race almost exclusively in affirmative action severely disadvantages the students who most deserve an adjusted SAT value–those who come from poverty. The AA “bump” that comes from being 1/16th Native American and from Amherst, MA is no different from the bump that comes from being 1/2 Native American and coming from the Navajo Nation in New Mexico. What this means in practice is that there are many students who absolutely need some sort of corrective action on their transcript to adjust for an educationally wanting background who are not receiving enough of a bump, and are being excluded from top schools when their racial compatriots from wealthy areas (who probably don’t need much of an “adjustment” to compensate for anything that could hold them back on the SAT or grades) fulfill the target numbers for the elite schools.

This is a long, round about way of saying that I think that our almost exclusively racial focus when it comes to affirmative action has the side effect of excluding those of racial minorities who are indisputably in need (and deserving) of the advantage offered by AA. If our focus was instead only on factors such as high school quality, the financial health of the student’s family, the financial health of the student’s hometown, the educational history of the student’s family, and the extra-academic burdens carried by the student, the result would be a much more sensible admission of students in need.

Outperformance was measured not only by jobs (which might be influenced by continued AA policies, but that’s debatable whether or not such policies overwhelm the “old boys network” aspect of many such prestigious jobs), but also civic engagement and contentedness in life.

as for your other, larger point, here here! Affirmative action is a band-aid on a gaping wound. As such, it is nice but not enough. But I’d rather keep the bandaid while rushing the patient to surgery (alright, bad extension of the analogy) than rip it off and then rush the patient to surgery. I’m always disappointed that both sides of the debate end up arguing about the bandaid of AA instead of the gaping wound of inequality.

Your analogy doesn’t fit at all. A better analogy would be that AA–as it currently stands–is like putting bandaids on all automobile drivers who drive red sports cars, because they crash at a significantly higher percentage than other drivers, rather than saving your resources so you can properly bandage those drivers–in sports cars and SUVs alike–who actually crash.

I understand your assertion that the AA argument focuses far more on the bandaging of the wound than the prevention of the wound in the first place, but I also don’t agree that it’s quite as simple as that. Many people (myself included) believe that education is one of the best tools we have to address the causes of inequality in the country. Sure, higher education is only a small part of the general educational mess in our country, but it’s a very important part. In fact, I’m not sure if we’re going to be able to fix our primary and secondary schools until enough people in these communities benefit from education beyond these basic levels. Regardless of whether you believe education to be the silver bullet of inequality or not, I am sure you agree that education is one important tool we have in addressing inequality in our country.

One of the aspects of the AA debate that is so often thoroughly misconstrued or overlooked is that its a policy that only truly affects a SMALL number of people and only:
1. Once they’re at the level of higher education
2. Once they’re close enough to consider going to selective higher education

Yet everyone has an opinion on AA but few people actually spend 1/10th the time considering what can and should be done about the education that 95% of americans experience without AA ever interfering with that education for better or worse.

Interesting, your final point (that selective higher ed might lead to a groundswell of support for revamping our education system) is a piece of the puzzle for supporting AA–because, as I noted, african american graduates of selective universities show significantly more community engagement and therefore are more likely to be involved in trying to revamp and improve education more broadly.

David —
First off, I would like to excise a part of your response to me:

“Why then would you think that it is plausible to claim that those who accept legacy “advantages” which result in the average legacy having the same SAT scores as the average non-legacy at Williams are not able to criticize affirmative action for African American students, which result in a 150 SAT point differential.”

Wow. That is quite a sentence. Turgid, run-on, and combating a strawman. Well done, a trifecta of demogoguery by any measure. As to the Straw Man you create and then so boldly sort of defeat, where do I claim such a thing? My claim is simply this: If you give legacies ANY advantage in admissions, that is a form of affirmative action. This is an assertion of fact. And from that fact I draw larger conclusions on my views of affirmative action.

I love this assertion, by the way: “Instead of bothering to reply to your race-baiting, let me just ask you if Williams affirmative action policies apply to, say, members of the nation’s elite, say the daughters of Senator Obama?”

Race baiting, Dave? Really? How so? I realize that in Kaneworld saying something makes it so, and that ipse dixit assertions pass for argumentation, but in the world most of us inhabit, that does not work. And then I love that you rely on one of the standard conservative tactics on the issue of affirmative action: the invocation of (usually Colin Powell, in this case Obama) to warrant opposing race-based affirmative action. Aren’t you the guy who venerates statistics to the level of a sacrament? And yet you are fully willing to argue that an extreme outlier ought to represent the mean in this case? OK — you got me. Obama’s kids probably won’t warrant affirmative action. Which really has fuckall to do with the policy question at the heart of this debate over affirmative action for the 99.999999999% of black kids who are not the offspring of Obama, Powell, if she has kids Condi Rice, or whoever the intellectually dishonest hacks want to pull out as their misleading example du jour.

Meanwhile you use the SAT in your arguments, and then hide behind Morty and the admissions office when called out on that usage. We are talking about Williams policy here, but you are making a certain case about those policies, which is why you are being challenged. Stop being such a fucking ninny and either stand behind your arguments or tell us what you disavow. Those of us with issues with the SAT — wait for it — are well aware that Dave Kane isn’t the apodictic representative of their use. It will come as a shock to you, Dave, that only your sun revolves around you. The rest of us understand that we don’t live in a Kane-o-centric universe. We understand that you don’t actually make Williams policy, and amen for that.

As for anonymous’ gutless namecalling without disclosing his identity, well, I may be lots of things, but witless isn’t one of them. I note that you do not bother to engage with the — demonstrably correct — substance of my post, and instead go to the standard canard about “guilt.” Funny how conservatives oppose the touchy-feely dialogue until it is useful for them, and then suddenly they are all psychoanalysts without portfolio.

Once again I reiterate my belief that there is utterly no justification for anonymity at Ephblog. None. No one can plausibly claim that by posting here they could be hurt, and if they could, maybe they need to reconsider the way in which they post. Anonymous’ gutless (and let’s face it — floridly vacuous) rantings do not warrant protection. Though it is always nice to see who lines up on Dave’s side of a debate.

[Derek] When you write stuff like, “Or maybe I just don’t understand the fine points of Dave’s manifest brilliance, a brilliance which always seems to take the side of the argument against black folks,” you are race-baiting.The point of the Obama example is to establish just how out of touch you are on this topic. When someone knowledgeable (like, say, Rory) argues on this topic, they are smart enough to know that a large percentage, even a majority, of the beneficiaries of affirmative action at places like Williams are just as lucky about as lucky as Senator Obama’s daughters. (Loving, college-educated parents, excellent schools, top quintile income, and so on.) Someone smart, like Rory, thinks that, since it is still a good idea for Williams to be 10% African American, and since we need to give 150 point SAT advantages to applicants like Senator Obama’s daughters to get there, then, well, you got to do what you got to do. In fact, someone smart like Rory makes the subtle point that Williams needs to hit a number like 10% (in order to signal a basic level of inclusiveness) or else the most desirable African American applicants (those requiring the least or no affirmative action) will not come to Williams. In fact, Rory is so smart and knowledgeable on this topic that, half the time, he has me convinced.You, on the other hand, demonstrate the sort of paleo-liberal name-calling that grew tiresome 20 years ago. You write:

Stop being such a fucking ninny and either stand behind your arguments or tell us what you disavow.

The main point of 99% of the things that I write about the College’s admissiions policies in general, and its affirmative action in particular, is to establish and explain what the facts are. What does the College do? How many of the African American students at Williams (or the tipped athletes or the legacies or the internationals or insert-any-group-here) would be at Williams if admissions policies were different? Since you seem to be under the (mis)impression that affirmative action at Williams does not mainly benefit rich minorities from excellent schools, you should pay closer attention to what I write. You claim that you “don’t want to hear bitching about other forms of far more important affirmative action intended to address very real historical circumstances.” Well, good for you, I guess. My point here is not to whine. In fact, I make no claim about whether or not I agree with Williams’s current policy. I am just explaining how the world works. If you would rather not know, stop reading.

What I love about Dave is that he writes badly and thinks clumsily and acts like an utter douchebag and then when called out on it reaffirms those very characteristics. He is like Old Faithful without being old or historic or interesting.

Dave always takes the side against black folks, it is true and I did mention that truism as an aside. Dave hates facts unless those facts adhere to his ideology, in which case he is all about thrusting facts in our face. That is, as the kids say today, his thing.

From here on out, let’s just allow me to quote Dave, because his manifest douchebaggery comes out best in this forum.

“The point of the Obama example is to establish just how out of touch you are on this topic. When someone knowledgeable (like, say, Rory) argues on this topic, they are smart enough to know that a large percentage, even a majority, of the beneficiaries of affirmative action at places like Williams are just as lucky about as lucky as Senator Obama’s daughters. (Loving, college-educated parents, excellent schools, top quintile income, and so on.)”

I like the epistrophe you are about to establish, which is that someone smart, like Rory = someone dumb, like Derek. Well played. But here is the thing — and this thing sort of matters. Are all successful black students at Williams really as lucky as Obama’s kids? Which is to say: The children of the fucking Democratic presidential nominee. My guess is no. In fact, my guess is that to assert that any students in the history of the planet who were not also the offspring of — and I think this matters — the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in a year where that seems to matter — are somehow exactly equivalent to those offspring is fucktardery of the highest level, which is to say that it is Dave Kanesque.

“Someone smart, like Rory, thinks that, since it is still a good idea for Williams to be 10% African American, and since we need to give 150 point SAT advantages to applicants like Senator Obama’s daughters to get there, then, well, you got to do what you got to do. In fact, someone smart like Rory makes the subtle point that Williams needs to hit a number like 10% (in order to signal a basic level of inclusiveness) or else the most desirable African American applicants (those requiring the least or no affirmative action) will not come to Williams. In fact, Rory is so smart and knowledgeable on this topic that, half the time, he has me convinced.You, on the other hand, demonstrate the sort of paleo-liberal name-calling that grew tiresome 20 years ago.”

We get it. Rory = brilliant. And since you continue to use that exact phrasing, just have the nutsack to say it, Dave: You think I’m dumb. Fine. And so your response to my alleged namecalling is to assert that I am (namecalling alert!) a paleoliberal and to brush my arguments aside because of it. Despite the fact that my credentials on matters of race (or, actually, politics) are so far beyond yours that I am the one stooping to you to discuss the question of race and despite the fact that I have a pretty solid record of publications on race that hardly qualify as “paleoliberal.” If you disagree with me, how about doing so on substance, rather than bitching about my namecalling and then engaging in . . . namecalling.

And so as an example you pull out an insult of mine (it’s true — my disregard for you is such that I occasionally do what you do constantly with all with whom you agree) that was not connected to race, but rather connected to your hiding behind Morty and the admissions office when it comes to the SATs. See, you are such a lousy debater that you actually pull things out of context so as to misrepresent what people have actually said because your arguments are terrible, your avowed search for truth aside. Or I guess I should say “truth”.

As for your “how the world works” comment, I’m telling you right now, had you said something like that to me in person, your badass marine credentials aside, you’d have been picking up teeth. How fucking dare you, as someone who works in the most elite financial profession possible, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, accuse me, who teaches at a Hispanic Serving Institution in Texas, who comes from a bona fide working class background, of not knowing “how the world works” because you claim (and that’s all that it is, a claim) that I don’t understand the nitty gritty mean streets that are Williams admissions. Seriously, Dave, could you have picked worse grounds on which to judge “the world” and how it works? I’m about to head to Zimbabwe in the next week. So stuff your real world fantasies up your meeting one’s bride during winter fucking study ass.

And yet I’m glad you listed the last sentence. “Stop reading.” If I don’t agree with Dave Kane, which equals not understanding the real world, then I should stop reading.

OK, Dave, the all-knowing, who despite his omniscience has never actually, you know, done anything with admissions other than bitch about black people and athletes getting into Williams. Let us do compare our credentials on admissions issues at American colleges. While you pontificate from the sidelines, your real world of your imagination, here is what I have done in the last year: I have sat as a faculty senator at my university. In so doing, in the last six months I have helped to revise our admissions statistics. In fact I was central to reconfiguring those standards for our university. I have also sat as a faculty representative on both our faculty athletics committee and on the athletics compliance committee in which admissions was a huge factor. Now, if you can, combine those facts. I realize that you are the end all and be all of all discussions about college admissions and what they mean. And so you obviously can show how you have actually dealt with these issues first hand. If not, please, and I mean this with as much Roryesque intellect as I can muster up (sorry Rory — not your fault that David used you to say that I’m not smart): Fuck your theoretical little world. Because those of us who live in the actual real world where this shit doesn’t happen on blogs think you are a fatuous gasbag.

Oh — and in American history race does matter, a small point you seem to have elided in this discussion.

You do very well in defending yourself so you don’t need me to defend you (and your very evident, very “real world” and very engaged intelligence). I am saddened and disgusted by what got hurled at you. For this reader, that muck told me a lot about the hurler (and none of it was pretty) and was totally deflected back on him.

David, not only did you piss derek off, but you misrepresented my views in order to do so. Obama’s daughters are getting into elite schools because they are daughters of a senator, not because they check off african american. EVEN WITH affirmative action, the black population at elite institutions continues to be more economically, ethnically, and SES (in terms of parental education) diverse than the white population by far.

The irony of getting things wrong in this case is absolutely mind-blowing. just…wow.